Sarah Drummond and Joel Baden discuss birth, kingship and signs of God’s redemption in Isaiah 9:2-7. The text is appointed for Christmas (Proper 1), December 24, Years A, B, and C of the Revised Common Lectionary.
Expectations (Christmas)
Voiceover Voice:
It’s sung by those who love Jesus. It’s sung by those who are excited about this potentiality.
Helena Martin:
This is Chapter, Verse, and Season: a lectionary podcast from Yale Bible Study. I’m Helena Martin.
Welcome back to another conversation about an upcoming text from the Revised Common Lectionary. Each week—and sometimes a little more often—we bring you a conversation with two of the Yale Divinity School faculty. You’ll notice that this episode is coming out on Saturday, rather than our usual Monday. That’s because it’s for Christmas Eve, which is now less than a week away! For special occasions, we’ll have additional episodes like this one every so often.
And for this special episode, we have Sarah Drummond, Founding Dean of Andover Newton Seminary at Yale and Joel Baden, Professor of Hebrew Bible and Director of the Center for Continuing Education. They joined us a couple episodes ago, so a big thank you to them for being here again so soon for this special, weekend edition.
They’re discussing Isaiah 9:2-7, which is appointed for Christmas Eve Proper I, Friday, December 24.
The text is read for you by student Eric Holland.
Eric Holland:
Isaiah 9:2-7
The people who walked in darkness
have seen a great light;
those who lived in a land of deep darkness—
on them light has shined.
You have multiplied the nation,
you have increased its joy;
they rejoice before you
as with joy at the harvest,
as people exult when dividing plunder.
For the yoke of their burden,
and the bar across their shoulders,
the rod of their oppressor,
you have broken as on the day of Midian.
For all the boots of the tramping warriors
and all the garments rolled in blood
shall be burned as fuel for the fire.
For a child has been born for us,
a son given to us;
authority rests upon his shoulders;
and he is named
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
His authority shall grow continually,
and there shall be endless peace
for the throne of David and his kingdom.
He will establish and uphold it
with justice and with righteousness
from this time onward and forevermore.
The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.
Joel Baden:
This is among the most famous passages from the Hebrew Bible. And it takes all of my strength, I suppose, not to simply start by saying: this isn’t about Jesus.
I realize now I’ve started by saying that, but you know, that to me, as a historical critic and as a Jewish scholar, is the most blindingly obvious part of the thing to say about this. Which maybe makes it not the most obvious thing for us to actually be talking about. Because maybe it’s just too obvious. Is it too obvious?
Sarah Drummond:
I think that we make a mistake in the Christian tradition of thinking that the most important reason to educate our communities about the fact that this is not about Jesus is antisemitism and prevention of antisemitism. I think that we frame—why do we need to emphasize that this text predated and did not predict the birth of Jesus in the manger with the animals and the rest of the figurines who surround the animals and the manger is because to claim that this is about Jesus is a profoundly antisemitic start to an argument.
And I think that that’s really important to note, but there are other really important reasons why it’s really important for Christian ministers to educate their communities about this not being Jesus. And those reasons, to my mind, have to do with the way we understand “the Chosen One,” the way we understand anything having to do “the One.”
Christians love to fantasize about “the One” that fixed everything. “The One” that got us all off the hook. And we then move forward with this idea of how history moves and works of a person who takes responsibility away from communities. And then they project that responsibility onto whoever is most distant and most convenient for them.
Jesus was a Redeemer. Jesus was the one Christians understand to have been the person who taught us what God actually thinks we ought to be doing. We understand Jesus to be supernaturally appointed and also to have teachings and educational messages about how to live our lives.
And, amazingly, Christians get really excited about that first part, and they forget the teachings part. And when they do that, they get theologically lazy. So, the fact that this is not about Jesus is just one more way in which we can help people to understand that numerous different interpretations can be offered around prophecies of “the One” that really aren’t one person necessarily.
So, I wonder what are some alternative interpretations just historically of this text? To whom might Isaiah have been referring, and what might be some alternative ways to understand the nature of this prophecy?
Joel Baden:
In a sense, the way that you’re reading here, it almost doesn’t matter who it is. You don’t want it to be anyone.
I could say that this is a prophecy, as I think it probably was, about like birth and eventual kingship of King Hezekiah—who was much beloved in the time and the Bible really, really likes a lot, Isaiah particularly. So you know, that sort of historical critical and typically Jewish reading has to do with: this is about Hezekiah. So it’s very contextually bound. But one would still read this as Hezekiah as sort of the savior figure, in a way. And you don’t want anyone to have that role?
Sarah Drummond:
Well, I get nervous about savior figures that show up at the end of the movie, before the credits start to roll. Because the idea that the savior figure is now going to conduct some kind of cosmic erasure of everything wrong with our civilization is just as much of a fantasy as the wedding at the end of the movie. Weddings are a beginning; they’re not the end, and they’re not a fantasy.
So, what makes me feel like we need to stir up the idea of the singularity of the savior? I don’t think that I have so much of an issue—I don’t have negative feelings about the idea of a heroic narrative or a heroic journey. And in fact, I don’t think that it takes any of the power away to imagine this passage from Isaiah being a wonderful song, wonderful story to set to music—by Handel or somebody else—and use it as part of a celebration.
As long as it’s not necessarily claiming that this is the end of the work, kingdom has come. No, Jesus was really clear that the new Jerusalem is not something that he was bringing to full fruition. He was describing it; he wasn’t finalizing it.
I would actually compare it to—I would compare a celebratory use of Isaiah’s passage around, say, Christmas to similarly pointing to the echoes of Hannah’s song in the Magnificat. I actually believe that the fact that Mary is singing a song about her joy at God making use of her as the mother of the savior—the fact that she’s singing somebody else’s song, I’ve compared to a teenager singing along with a love song on the radio. There’s something really wonderful about it. It doesn’t ruin the Magnificat to think that it wasn’t an original. And similarly, the Isaiah passage isn’t ruined for me by the fact that it’s not about Jesus, but rather it’s sung by those who love Jesus, it’s sung by those who are excited about this potentiality.
So, I think that the factuality is something that helps congregations untether themselves from a hyper literal understanding of the text. Because my understanding is that hyperliteral reads just ruin everything.
Joel Baden:
Yeah. I mean, I will say that for my part, I’m not the kind of historical critical thinker who’s like, “Well, the original meaning is the only meaning.” Right? It’s not the case that just because this text was written about, I think, probably Hezekiah that from a Christian perspective, it can’t, or shouldn’t be read as being about Jesus. What’s interesting, and what I think is exciting about the historical critical recognition of—what you’re talking about, this reuse, this interpretation of one text in a different context—is it allows us to ask the question of: Why? What was it about this text that made it so useful?
When we see reuse or interpretation, we get to ask questions like: What did people see in this text that they thought “this is the one that we’re going to lift up as being our text now.” You know, the singing along to the love song is really a lovely image. It also reminds us that this text, whatever the historical context it was written in, was preserved and passed down in such a way that later generations were saying to themselves, “This is mine. This is about us and our belief, too.”
But it continues to raise the question of like: is it because they saw in it this savior thing going on, and that was appealing as, as you say, sort of the like, “Well, finally, someone’s gonna come along and solve my problems for me.” It’s not clear to me from the text that that’s exactly what’s being described.
I think it’s really easy to read this, as it often has been, as, “Everything’s going to be fine because a child has been born.” And I think that you can, and maybe should, read the text more as, “Things are going to get better. And this is going to be one of the indications of—in this imagined, really good imminent future.” Right. Because the birth of the child comes in near the end of the prophetic text, you know? But it’s about God first, right? “You’ve multiplied the nation. You’ve increased its joy. You’ve removed the yolk of the oppressor.” Not because a child is born. But like, in the same way as in Isaiah 6: the birth of the child is the sign of God’s redemption.
And you’re right, the savior notion here is, I think, kind of a misreading. Or at least not the only or most obvious reading.
Sarah Drummond:
I appreciate what you’re saying and I hope that I didn’t make it sound like I think that there’s only a dangerous read. In fact, I believe that the most dangerous thing is anybody claiming that there is only one interpretation of the text.
What I worry about is people who try to make things look neat and tidy. The baby metaphor, even in our present day, can be a great example of how we call something the fulfillment of all things. I think about the couples that we know who—trying for baby, trying for a baby, they have a baby, and it’s not at all what they expected it to be. Meaning the meaning of the experience isn’t it all what they expected it to be. Why? Because our whole society is telling them, through marketing and advertising, that having a baby is going to be the fulfillment of all of your hopes and dreams. But it’s actually a person and a real experience.
So, I think that reading the text as a celebration and reading it with joy is absolutely appropriate.
Reading it as an answer is what makes me a little nervous and thinking that Christian ministers need to help their communities understand the non-linearity of the arrow between this text and Jesus.
Helena Martin:
Thanks for listening to Chapter, Verse, and Season!
Remember to subscribe if you haven’t already. It just takes a second, and it helps other new listeners find us. And follow us on Twitter @BibleYale.
For more information about Chapter, Verse, and Season, and for more Bible study resources, check out YaleBibleStudy.org.
Chapter, Verse, and Season is produced by Joel Baden, Kelly Morrissey, and me, Helena Martin. Production help is by Crichelle Brice, and our theme music is by Calvin Linderman.
Thanks to the Center for Continuing Education at Yale Divinity School, as always. And thank you to Dean Drummond and Professor Baden for joining us for this special edition episode.
We’ll be back on Monday with another conversation from Chapter, Verse, and Season.
Book of the Bible:
Isaiah
Subjects:
Isaiah
Guests
Text
New Revised Standard Version Bible
Copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Credits
Host and Executive Producer: Helena Martin
Production Manager: Kelly Morrissey
Creator and Managing Editor: Joel Baden
Assistant Producer: Aidan Stoddart
Music: Calvin Linderman
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Chapter, Verse, and Season gives listeners the opportunity to overhear the kinds of conversations that take place in the halls of Yale Divinity School. Each week, professors from different theological disciplines chat about biblical texts from the Revised Common Lectionary. They bring their own interests to the table and hopefully spark new insights into the scripture appointed for each Sunday.